The imposing asteroid, dubbed by NASA Asteroid 2019 JB1, is headed towards the Earth on a “Close Approach” trajectory. NASA’s asteroid trackers have calculated a close flyby in the early morning hours of Monday, May 20. According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, Asteroid JB1 will shoot past our planet around 4.23am BST (3.23am UTC). And when the asteroid nears the Earth, it will reach breakneck speeds of around 26.04km per second or 58,349.8mph.

Asteroid JB1 is an Apollo-type “Near-Earth Object” or NEO asteroid.

NEOs are all asteroids and comets in orbit of the Sun at a distance of 1.3 astronomical units (au).

Just one astronomical unit measures about 93 million miles (149.6 million km), which is the distance between the Earth and the Sun.